July 2001 Comic Book Sales to Comics Shops

Estimated Comics Preordered by North American Comics Shops
Based on Reports from Diamond Comic Distributors

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The long-awaited post-1993 recovery began to develop in July. Dollar comic book preorders topped those of the same month in 2000 by a third of a million dollars. Credit belonged to Marvel, which showed up with eight more offerings than it had in June; X-Men titles swept the Top 5.

Diamond did release dollar rankings for the Top 300 comics; these will be added at a later date.

This list includes all items on Diamond's Top 300 chart.
Items marked (resolicited) were offered in an earlier month but never shipped; disregard any previously reported figure, as earlier orders were canceled when the books were resolicited.
Distributor charts are regional commodity reports, not measures of a work's total reach. Read our FAQ.
The links lead to current listings for each issue on eBay. You can also find the books at your comics shop.

Vital statistics

Category to date for year:36.53 million copies(-11% vs. previous year)

COMICS DOLLAR SALES

The Top 300 Comics sold had a total retail price of$17.56 million

(+2% vs. same month previous year)

Category to date for year:$100.29 million(-9% vs. previous year)

GRAPHIC NOVEL DOLLAR SALES

The Top 25 Graphic Novels sold had a total retail price of$1.44 million

(+19% vs. same month previous year)

Category to date for year:$10.55 million(+23% vs. previous year)

COMICS AND GRAPHIC NOVEL DOLLAR SALES

The Top 300 Comics and Top 25 Graphic Novels sold had a combined total retail price of$19 million

(+3% vs. same month previous year)

Category to date for year:$110.84 million(-7% vs. previous year)

Average cost of comics in the Top 300:$3.00

Average cost of comics in the Top 300, weighted by orders:$2.81

Average cost of comics in the Top 25:$2.76

Median cost of comics in the Top 300:$2.95

Most common cost of comics in the Top 300:$2.95

MARKET SHARES

Share of Overall Final Order Dollars

DC

30.72%

Marvel

30.58%

Image

9.16%

Dark Horse

5.92%

Wizard

3.48%

Viz

2.25%

Crossgen

1.88%

Oni

0.89%

Chaos

0.89%

Tokyopop

0.87%

Others

13.36%

Share of Overall Preordered Units

Marvel

38.04%

DC

29.51%

Image

8.93%

Dark Horse

4.67%

Wizard

2.46%

Crossgen

2.04%

Chaos

1.69%

Viz

1.26%

Cartoon

0.44%

Fantagraphics

0.43%

Antarctic

0.36%

Dynamic Forces

0.13%

Other

10.04%

Share of Overall Preordered Dollars

Marvel

32.68%

DC

26.85%

Image

8.71%

Dark Horse

6.21%

Wizard

3.40%

Chaos

1.98%

Crossgen

1.83%

Viz

1.80%

Cartoon

0.77%

Fantagraphics

0.73%

Dynamic Forces

0.70%

Antarctic

0.60%

Other

13.74%

Items in Top 300

DC

69

Marvel

46

Image

25

Archie

18

Dark Horse

17

Viz

13

CPM

8

Crossgen

7

Avatar

6

Chaos

6

Fantagraphics

6

Slave Labor

6

Antarctic

5

Radio

5

Tokyopop

5

Ironcat

4

Oni

4

Abstract

3

Kenzer

3

Astonish

2

Cartoon

2

CBLDF

2

Com X

2

Dork Storm

2

Funk-o-tron

2

New England

2

Realm

2

Sirius

2

Aaaargh

1

Aardvark-Vanaheim

1

Acetylene

1

Airwave

1

Basement

1

Bongo

1

Broadsword

1

Dancing Elephant

1

Darkchylde

1

Dynamic Forces

1

El Capitan

1

Fanboy

1

Games Workshop

1

Harris

1

Humanoids

1

Linsner

1

I Box

1

Insight

1

Lightspeed

1

NBM

1

Peregrine

1

Shanda

1

TwoMorrows

1

Warp

1

White Lightning

1

Wizard

1

Share of Units in Top 300

Marvel

40.91%

DC

31.41%

Image

9.38%

Dark Horse

4.36%

Crossgen

2.20%

Chaos

1.66%

Viz

1.01%

Archie

0.96%

Wizard

0.58%

Oni

0.45%

Cartoon

0.44%

Tokyopop

0.44%

Avatar

0.43%

Abstract

0.42%

Linsner

0.37%

Kenzer

0.35%

Antarctic

0.32%

CPM

0.31%

Harris

0.30%

Fantagraphics

0.29%

Slave Labor

0.29%

Bongo

0.26%

Insight

0.23%

Darkchylde

0.20%

Sirius

0.18%

Broadsword

0.18%

Realm

0.17%

New England

0.17%

Astonish

0.15%

Radio

0.15%

El Capitan

0.12%

Aardvark-Vanaheim

0.12%

Ironcat

0.11%

CBLDF

0.11%

Warp

0.11%

Com X

0.10%

Dork Storm

0.09%

Humanoids

0.09%

Basement

0.07%

Funk-o-tron

0.06%

NBM

0.05%

Peregrine

0.05%

Airwave

0.04%

I Box

0.04%

White Lightning

0.03%

Fanboy

0.03%

Acetylene

0.03%

Aaaargh

0.03%

Dancing Elephant

0.03%

Dynamic Forces

0.03%

TwoMorrows

0.03%

Lightspeed

0.02%

Shanda

0.02%

Games Workshop

0.02%

Share of Dollars in Top 300

Marvel

39.32%

DC

30.25%

Image

10.00%

Dark Horse

4.86%

Crossgen

2.31%

Chaos

2.07%

Viz

1.13%

Archie

0.76%

Wizard

0.62%

Cartoon

0.62%

Avatar

0.55%

Tokyopop

0.49%

Oni

0.47%

Abstract

0.44%

Fantagraphics

0.40%

Linsner

0.39%

Antarctic

0.39%

Kenzer

0.36%

Slave Labor

0.33%

CPM

0.33%

Harris

0.32%

CBLDF

0.27%

New England

0.24%

Insight

0.24%

Bongo

0.23%

Darkchylde

0.21%

Realm

0.19%

Astonish

0.19%

Sirius

0.19%

Broadsword

0.19%

Radio

0.17%

Com X

0.15%

Warp

0.15%

El Capitan

0.13%

Ironcat

0.12%

Dork Storm

0.10%

Aardvark-Vanaheim

0.10%

Humanoids

0.09%

Basement

0.07%

Funk-o-tron

0.06%

Dynamic Forces

0.06%

NBM

0.05%

Peregrine

0.05%

Airwave

0.04%

White Lightning

0.04%

Shanda

0.04%

TwoMorrows

0.04%

Fanboy

0.03%

I Box

0.03%

Aaaargh

0.03%

Dancing Elephant

0.03%

Acetylene

0.03%

Lightspeed

0.02%

Games Workshop

0.02%

Dollar Share of Top 300 Comics & Top 25 TPBs

Marvel

32.99%

DC

28.48%

Dark Horse

10.26%

Image

8.79%

Titan

3.10%

Viz

2.17%

Cartoon

1.86%

Tokyopop

1.77%

Antarctic

1.75%

Renaissance

1.58%

Crossgen

1.36%

Chaos

1.02%

Archie

0.59%

Wizard

0.36%

Oni

0.28%

Avatar

0.26%

Abstract

0.26%

Linsner

0.23%

Kenzer

0.21%

CPM

0.19%

Harris

0.19%

Fantagraphics

0.18%

Slave Labor

0.18%

Bongo

0.16%

Insight

0.14%

Darkchylde

0.12%

Sirius

0.11%

Broadsword

0.11%

Realm

0.11%

New England

0.11%

Astonish

0.09%

Radio

0.09%

El Capitan

0.08%

Aardvark-Vanaheim

0.07%

Ironcat

0.07%

CBLDF

0.07%

Warp

0.07%

Com X

0.06%

Dork Storm

0.06%

Humanoids

0.05%

Basement

0.04%

Funk-o-tron

0.04%

NBM

0.03%

Peregrine

0.03%

Airwave

0.03%

I Box

0.02%

White Lightning

0.02%

Fanboy

0.02%

Acetylene

0.02%

Aaaargh

0.02%

Dancing Elephant

0.02%

Dynamic Forces

0.02%

Two Morrows

0.02%

Lightspeed

0.01%

Shanda

0.01%

Games Workshop

0.01%

Product Breakdown of Diamond Sales

Comics

60.55%

Toys & Models

13.60%

Graphic Novels

8.06%

Magazines

4.88%

Books

2.47%

Trading Cards

2.38%

Videos

2.28%

Apparel

1.55%

Prints & Posters

1.28%

Non-Comic Novelties

0.01%

Diamond Publications

0.78%

Games

0.77%

Comic Novelties

0.00%

Comic Supplies

0.09%

Retailer Sales Tools

0.03%

Card Supplies

0.01%

THE FINE PRINT

The monthly sales estimates at right are for items preordered from Diamond Comic Distributors, the largest comic-book distributor in North America.

Diamond does not publish sales figures; instead it publishes "indexed" sales tables, in which it keys orders for all comics it lists sales for to a single comic book (usually Batman), with one “order index point” being equal to 1% of that title’s orders.

Along with other methods, we use the actual Diamond final orders from titles to approximate what an order index point equals each month.The result is applied to the Diamond charts to produce the estimates seen at right.

The figures represent only those comics and graphic novels that Diamond preorded by North American retailers in the calendar month. While Diamond's sales represent the majority of periodicals in circulation, they are a smaller portion of the overall graphic novel market.

Preordered items may not have actually shipped in the month for which they were ordered — and some were not shipped at all. Such items may reappear in later preorder charts marked as resolicitations; in those cases the preorders appearing in earlier lists are cancelled.

Rankings of all comic books that eventually came out can be found in the year's report in the the Year Overview section, where available.

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